Despite her team suffering another lopsided defeat and matching the worst Western Athletic Conference start in program history, Hawaii women’s basketball coach Dana Takahara-Dias says she’s encouraged.

Her Rainbow Wahine (6-13) dropped to 0-6 in league play after last night’s 79-57 loss to Fresno State at the Save Mart Center in Fresno, Calif.

It was UH’s seventh straight loss overall and 16th on the road in WAC play.

"We’re encouraged about the big step forward we took tonight as a team, despite losing by 22," said Takahara-Dias, the second-year coach. "I thought our performance tonight was a whole lot gutsier than we competed against San Jose State (on Saturday). We still have to put two halves together."

The Wahine trailed by 10 points midway through the first half to the defending league regular-season champions, but rallied to within 28-27 with 4:27 left in the period. However, they couldn’t take the lead and were outscored by 17 in the second half.

"I’m very proud of how the team responded in the first half. However we need to make sure we can play back-to-back halves," Takahara-Dias said. "A loss is a loss, and we’re racking up quite a bit of them … but tonight was a real positive step forward for us."

Senior forward Allie Patterson came off the bench to score 14 points on 7-for-9 shooting, but no other UH player scored more than eight. Freshman wing Shawna Kuehu had six points, five assists, five rebounds and three blocks.

Forward Hayley Munro scored a game-high 18 points for FSU (13-6, 4-1), which beat UH for the 10th straight time and 16th in the last 17 meetings going back to 2004. The Bulldogs hit 11 3-pointers and collected 11 steals.

The UH women also started 0-6 in 2008-09 under Jim Bolla. The Wahine finished 4-12 in the WAC and 8-23 overall that season for the most losses in team history.

UH wraps up its difficult stretch of five straight road games on Thursday at Utah State (8-10, 2-3).